The Walking Dead: Is Alexandria Done For?

Before we even begin, here’s a spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen Season 6, Episode 7 of The Walking Dead. Run away like Daryl should have from those motorcycle, crossbow stealing forest thieves—and we'd like to say to those dirtbags, we hope Daryl haunts your dreams.

Season after season, we’ve seen the fall of the safe haven, from the quarry camp, to the CDC, to Hershel’s farm, to most memorably, the prison. So, after Alexandria’s walls collapsed and the herd of bloodthirsty walkers swarmed in, it’s only natural to think that The Walking Dead season was repeating the normal cycle: heroes find shelter, heroes feel safe in shelter and think maybe this is it…until all hell breaks lose and multiple people die horrific, gory deaths at the hands evil villains and mutilated, decomposing walkers.

In an earlier recap, we predicted the Alexandrian community would soon succumb to that same fate, and we still think they will. But we don’t think this is the fall of Alexandria. Not yet, anyway.

First of all, much of the group is still outside the walls, which once was a bad thing, but it now may work to Alexandria’s advantage. Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham are on their way back in a tractor trailer with recently scavenged military equipment. And even if somehow, the bazooka-type guns Abraham found weren’t enough to put a serious dent in the walking horde, consider this symbolic idea: a truck driven by the Wolves brought the group to Alexandria in the first place, so another truck should be able to lead the Walkers from Alexandria with the same method.

And then there’s the second reason, which involves some comic book knowledge. Here’s your second spoiler warning of the post:

We’ve extensively reported on the casting of Negan, perhaps one of The Walking Dead’s greatest villains—and that’s because in addition to being a brutal, brutal killer, he also wages a war against the Alexandria safe zone. In order for the war to happen, which if the writers are smart they will, Alexandria needs to still exist. Alexandria can’t fall now, because it may need to fall later.

This is not to say that Alexandria will come out unscathed, because with this amount of walkers, there’s bound to be some serious carnage. But perhaps Alexandria will just be down, and not out.

SEASON 1: The first time we’re introduced to a cheeky good-natured pizza delivery boy named Glenn (and his adorable baseball cap), he goes out of his way to riskily save Rick, who gets himself stuck in a military tank surrounded by walkers. His rescue proves successful but leads to Glenn and his group being helplessly surrounded by an endless horde of walkers after their gunshots become the closest thing to a dinner bell for these angelic little flesh-eaters. It’s only when Rick creates a makeshift camouflage of walker guts that they make it out alive.

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 2: A bloated well walker resembling Jabba the Hutt almost kills Glenn and simultaneously makes everyone lose their lunch. Haven’t there been enough horror movies with creatures in wells for all of us, Glenn included, to know better?

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 3: One of the more heartbreaking moments of the show is when Glenn and Maggie are taken hostage at the Governor’s base and separated from one another, with Glenn left to assume the worst about Maggie. And if things couldn’t get any worse, Merle releases a particularly nasty-looking walker on Glenn, who quite literally has his hands behind his back, tied down to a chair. In true Glenn form, he manages to escape, releasing the loudest He-Man roar of the season.

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON FOUR: With an ominous virus plaguing the prison, Glenn falls ill, leading to a scene where Maggie finds a blood-gurgling and barely conscious Glenn. He’s eventually saved by a Hershel-meets-House M.D. moment.

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 6: After following Nicholas outside Alexandria’s presumably safe borders, Glenn gets shot right in the shoulder, is almost beaten to death by Nicholas and eaten alive by a walker . . . but still he survives. You’d think Glenn would seek true Walking Dead justice by finishing off Nicholas, but he allows Saint Nick to go on a path of redemption, which never really ended up working in Glenn’s favor.

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 6: The pièce de résistance! Just when we were ready to get out our tissues and metaphorical pitchforks to throw at our TV screens (and at Nicholas), Glenn went ahead and Jon Snow-ed us in the best way possible: Surviving hundreds of walkers under Nicholas’s manflesh, further confirming that even walkers are simpleminded selective eaters that only eat what they want to.

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

So where does this leave us? Though there’s some [murmuring] (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/11/walking-dead-negan-jeffrey-dean-morgan-glenn-lives) going on that Glenn’s continuous revivals may be running out of luck, we will continue to hope for the best. Keep on, keeping on, Glenn. (We also deserve one more guitar performance from you at the very least.)

Photo: Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 1: The first time we’re introduced to a cheeky good-natured pizza delivery boy named Glenn (and his adorable baseball cap), he goes out of his way to riskily save Rick, who gets himself stuck in a military tank surrounded by walkers. His rescue proves successful but leads to Glenn and his group being helplessly surrounded by an endless horde of walkers after their gunshots become the closest thing to a dinner bell for these angelic little flesh-eaters. It’s only when Rick creates a makeshift camouflage of walker guts that they make it out alive.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 2: A bloated well walker resembling Jabba the Hutt almost kills Glenn and simultaneously makes everyone lose their lunch. Haven’t there been enough horror movies with creatures in wells for all of us, Glenn included, to know better?

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 3: One of the more heartbreaking moments of the show is when Glenn and Maggie are taken hostage at the Governor’s base and separated from one another, with Glenn left to assume the worst about Maggie. And if things couldn’t get any worse, Merle releases a particularly nasty-looking walker on Glenn, who quite literally has his hands behind his back, tied down to a chair. In true Glenn form, he manages to escape, releasing the loudest He-Man roar of the season.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON FOUR: With an ominous virus plaguing the prison, Glenn falls ill, leading to a scene where Maggie finds a blood-gurgling and barely conscious Glenn. He’s eventually saved by a Hershel-meets-House M.D. moment.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 4: When Maggie and Glenn are separated after escaping the prison, The Walking Dead tries to fool us into thinking that Maggiehad discovered a dead Glenn in a school bus full of the infected. Turns out it was just any old dark-haired zombie, and Glenn was actually still at the prison, alive and king of the walker-infested hill.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 4: Glenn and an injured Tara enter a dark tunnel o’death on their way to Terminus to find Maggie by any means necessary, finding themselves swarmed with zombie groupies. At the very last second, Glenn and Tara are reunited and saved by Maggie, Bob, and Sasha.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 5: Cannibals! Cannibals, galore! Rick and everyone else find out their safe haven at Terminus is actually, naturally, a human butcher shop. Right when it’s Glenn’s turn to have his lights out, Carol launches a full-fledged heroic attack and saves everyone.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 5: And thus begins Nicholas’s path of endless destruction. Here we lose Noah, who sacrifices himself in order to save Glenn in a graphic revolving door scene. All of this after Nicholas leaves the two stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 6: After following Nicholas outside Alexandria’s presumably safe borders, Glenn gets shot right in the shoulder, is almost beaten to death by Nicholas and eaten alive by a walker . . . but still he survives. You’d think Glenn would seek true Walking Dead justice by finishing off Nicholas, but he allows Saint Nick to go on a path of redemption, which never really ended up working in Glenn’s favor.

Courtesy of AMC.

SEASON 6: The pièce de résistance! Just when we were ready to get out our tissues and metaphorical pitchforks to throw at our TV screens (and at Nicholas), Glenn went ahead and Jon Snow-ed us in the best way possible: Surviving hundreds of walkers under Nicholas’s manflesh, further confirming that even walkers are simpleminded selective eaters that only eat what they want to.

Courtesy of AMC.

So where does this leave us? Though there’s some [murmuring] (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/11/walking-dead-negan-jeffrey-dean-morgan-glenn-lives) going on that Glenn’s continuous revivals may be running out of luck, we will continue to hope for the best. Keep on, keeping on, Glenn. (We also deserve one more guitar performance from you at the very least.)